Dissertation Defense: Pei-Hsuan Lin
Candidate: Pei-Hsuan Lin
Major: Government
Advisor: Richard Boyd, Ph.D.
Title: Citizenship and Territory: Toward A Jurisdictional Theory of Membership
Abstract:
Who are the people?” is a perennial question in politics that has remained central and contested. This dissertation proposes a jurisdictional account of membership that better captures our current society and contributes to resolving some of the difficult moral issues we face today concerning immigration.
The first chapter starts by investigating the common dichotomous thinking about citizenship, namely to distinguish citizens from noncitizens. It argues that how this distinction is drawn and what it distinguishes can be very different due to the multivalence of citizenship and the conceptual conflations of how territory is conceived.
The second chapter provides a concrete example of how “the people” has been defined and interpretated in the U.S. Constitution. It demonstrates how “the people” defined through an individual’s connections to society is theoretically ambiguous and practically problematic. Thisresults in inconsistencies that make “the people” a logical impossibility.
The third chapter delves deeper into the underlying normative view that conceives of the people to be members of society who are deeply connected to one another, which I call social membership. I argue that in recognizing the importance of social membership established by residence over time, this view narrows the meaning of citizenship to horizontal relationships among members. This is not only inadequate but inconsistent with American citizenship.
In the fourth chapter I argue that the connection thatactually matters is the vertical and jurisdictional kindgrounded in being subject to the coercion of the state. I argue that we should adopt my jurisdictional membership grounded in subjection to coercion because it iscomprehensive, ascriptive, scalar or proportionate, reciprocal and conceptually precise. I argue the emphasis on reciprocity or mutuality allows jurisdictional membership to start from a normatively less demanding basis and therefore makes it more practically feasible. The major innovation of jurisdictional membership lies in how it resolves the mismatch between the notional jurisdiction, where the laws apply, and the physical territory by making the idea of territory “notional” rather than purely physical.
I conclude by urging that our legal tools should follow up with the trend of the state making the border transcend its geographical limits.